Dale Says

For more than 20 years I’ve been writing summaries of what’s going on in my life and in the world around me on my birthday. Here’s an excerpt from 2001 …

April 24, 2001

On my birthday I’m 50 years old.

It’s a beautiful sunny day, which makes it even better to be home from work and celebrating my birthday! And it’s not just any birthday … today I’m 50 years old! Patty’s Mom always said “life begins at 50″ but I think she said that about 40 and 60, too. But her point is to make life begin at whatever age you are, rather than waiting for a later age to start things.

This is the year I will start a new life. It will be surrounded by a wonderful and loving wife and by very dear families and friends. Patty has had an extremely hard year and she has suffered immensely. She misses her mother and hurts from watching what it has done to her father. She is determined, however, to carry on where her mother left off, and that is what is allowing her to get through each day. She continues to be very busy with the clubs she participates in and the charities she is involved with and those activities help her avoid thinking about her mother. She has been very sweet to her father, to Allan, and to me. She helped me through knee surgery in January and was a loving and compassionate nurse. She was in a low-grade depression for some time after the loss of ther mother, but she seems to be pulling out of it and is blossoming into the next generation of her mother. It’s a wonderful thing to watch!

As of today I’m eligible to take early retirement from Visa. That’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time and hope to accomplish in the next few years. My goal is to become a free-lance writer, and I’ve been working on that in my spare time for a few years now.

During the past year two people who were very special to me passed away and their absence has had a great effect on me. Patty’s mother lost her battle with cancer last fall. She had a type of cancer that was treatable, but after completing several chemotheraphy treatments she didn’t recover from the last one. Her death was devastating to everyone who knew her. Ines was one of those very rare people who was completely giving and was loved by everyone she knew. Patty’s family received hundreds of notes from friends and relatives after her death, and nearly everone told about the “special” relatonship they had with her. I miss her every day and am lost without her.

Jackie Cooper, who worked with me at Visa, died suddenly of meningitis a few weeks ago. Jackie, who was only 58, was one of those special, giving, caring, and happy people. She made the most of every aspect of her life, and she always had time and energy to care for others.

I admired Ines and Jackie and I miss them. I will try to take some consolation from having known them and I will try to learn from them. From Ines I would like to always see the good in every thing that happens. From Jackie, I will try to always have a sparkle in my eyes, to let the world know that I’m enjoying life.

This has been another very busy year. Last year we went to Oklahoma each month to help Patty’s dad take care of her mother, and to help keep up their house and garden. Between those trips, we went to Oregon to see Anne and her family, to Colorado for a ski trip, a long weekend in Sonoma, to Drakesbad, to Nebraska for a family reunion, a trip to Branson, Missouri with Paul and Allan McCrary, and a two-week trip to Australia, where we saw the Olympics and the Great Barrier Reef.

Our families are well, although all parents are showing signs of their age. Dad McCrary was in the hospital during Easter. At 86, his mind is still very sharp, but as he says, his body is getting tired. My Dad lost most of the sight in one eye to macular degeneration, and he has the problem in his other eye. He is also beginning to ramble during conversations, and has some short-term memory loss. My Mom is doing well and is very active. She just won three ribbons for her watercolor paintings, and is going to enter one in a state art show.

Sister Anne is less that a month away from her two-year anniversary of completing cancer treatments. She is very excited about getting past that milestone, as her doctor told her that 80% of those who get cancer again get it within two years of the end of treatment. She looks and feels great, and her experience has given her a more relaxed, purposeful outlook on life.

In the news, this was the year of the contested presidential election. After a very close (and very long) campaign, Al Gore and George Bush went into Election Day in a dead heat. Following a long day of election returns it all came down to the popular vote in Florida, which had enough electoral votes to turn the election one way or the other. Then began a series of recounts and lawsuits that lasted a month. During that time the country was pretty much at a standstill and more than a little embarrassed in front of the rest of the world. Bush prevailed in a very contested mess, and he took office with a group of his father’s cronies, and with the U.S. economy easing into a recession.

The Internet has proven to be one of the technical marvels of our time. It’s most significant contribution has been a quicker, less expensive way to communicate, and a good share of person-to-person communications is being shifted to it. Businesses are learning that it allows them another way to communicate with existing and potential customers, although it does not replace the other ways. Start-up businesses, hoping to capitalize from this new technology, are learning that it really is necessary to make a profit, and that a new idea doesn’t pay the bills. Many of them have gone out of business and many of the rest are wrestling with how to increase revenues. Security, privacy, and receiving and returning goods are problems that await solutions.

The world’s economies are struggling. Japan has never recovered from its slowdown, and Europe’s economies are growing, but the European Community is slow getting started. Much of the developing world is battening down the hatches, preparing to be affected by the slowing U.S. economy.

California is in the midst of an energy crises. The state de-regulated its wholesale energy market last year, but maintained regulation of the retail distributors. So the wholesalers have overcharged the regulated energy company, which hasn’t been able to pass along the costs to consumers. PG&E declared bankruptcy last month, and we are all nervously awaiting the results. We have had rolling energy blackouts the past few months and will likely have more this summer.

Last year was the subway series in baseball between the New York Mets and New York Yankees. The Yankees won.